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16 Dec 2010

Anything but water

Organic does NOT require more land for production: "Organic dairy farms milking Jersey cows require an annual average 3.8 acres of land compared to 4.9 acres on high-production conventional farms." Read the report for that and much more (GHGs, meat and milk production, cow quality of life, etc.). This Swiss paper, in contrast, concludes that organic farming uses more land more sustainably (conventional farming uses many non-renewable inputs). I'm going to stop following this debate.

Oh those spammers: "What's your birth date, place and time? I'm an astrologer and like to have the charts of the ... shakers n movers of our times." Since I am REALLY important, I also included my credit card number :)

Back to business as usual: "Senate Republicans' ban on earmarks, money included in a bill by a lawmaker to benefit a home-state project or interest, was short-lived. Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe's water rights claim against the government." [more about politics than water rights, yeah?]

Krugman is right: the Irish government was wrong to bail out bank creditors with taxpayer money. Ironically, Ireland's fiscal implosion means that water will no longer be free. I'd call that a regressive policy, but it's a good idea to at least recover water delivery costs.